Vitamin B3 may help prevent certain skin cancers

For the first time, a large study suggests that a vitamin might modestly lower the risk of the most common types of skin cancer in people with a history of these relatively harmless but troublesome growths.

Researchers in Australia found that people who took nicotinamide, a form of vitamin B3, for a year had a 23 percent lower rate of new skin cancers compared to others who took dummy pills.

More than 3 million of these growths, usually basal and squamous cell cancers, are diagnosed each year in the United States. They are much less deadly than melanoma, a more serious type.

Study results were released Wednesday and will be discussed at a cancer conference later this month.